104 and GOING STRONG

I walked into the room of my 104 year old patient who had sprained her ankle. She was bright eyed and chipper explaining her injury and very "with it". I asked "What does it feel like to be 104"? She looked up with a grin and said "There's not much peer pressure". I want to be just like her when I grow up.

NOT THE SMARTEST DRUNK IN THE BAR

It was a sub-zero February morning. The car slid, more than drove to work. I inherited a drunk left over from nights. The story was he was drinking heavy at the bar...OK...he was afraid he was sooo drunk he would fall off his bike, so he tied himself to it with a rope. OK... He's drunk in a bar at 3am on a sub-zero February night and riding a bike? Obviously he has no license and figured this would work. UNFORTUNATELY while riding home on the icy streets he hit a curb and wiped out onto the road. EMS received a disatch for "Man down in the middle of 8th Street tied to a bicycle".

Medically he was unscathed. But we needed to let him sleep off his BAL until he proved safe to be discharge out into the public again. I took report on a few more patients then went to check him out.

He was not in his room! The siderails on his stretcher were still up and his clothes were still on the chair. Hmmmm a drunk Houdini? I reported the findings and security went to look for him, albeit unsuccesfully. 30 minutes later we received a call from a very angry Mother. "How in the hell could you just let him leave in his pajamas in the snow?!! He could of froze to death! She went on and on and on...

I exlained to her that all had checked out well medically and we were just letting him sleep off his drunk. (This was before HIPPA invaded our world) I finished with "He decided to climb the rails and slip out without telling us". "Well the least you could of done is fed him breakfast". Hmmmm it was way too early to give her the "accountability lecture" so I said "If you would like to bring him back I'm sure we could find him a tray" Sometimes it doesn't bother me at all to have the other person hang upon me.